A proposal issued in a recent report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) called for a new government regulator—the Digital Platforms Branch—that would review Google and Facebook algorithms in order to gain better insight into their business practices and identify any potential anti-competitive behavior.
It’s a move whose implications may stretch well outside Australian borders, especially as concerns continue to be raised over biases inherent to algorithms powering AI applications. However, a regulatory review of algorithms is not without its complications, and for some, the reward of uncovering algorithms might not be large enough to offset both the leg work involved and the potentially unnecessary risk to both regulators and the tech companies they oversee.
